


Best Friends

by stardropdream



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: F/F, F/M, Implied Relationships, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 08:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the zashiki-warashi learns of Watanuki's accident, she goes to Yuuko's shop. There, she learns more about the ways of humans, and relays that information back to the ame-warashi (much to the latter's chagrin.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ January 2, 2009.

She came to the shop as soon as she heard the news. She swallowed her tears, but her face was red from her effort not to cry, and she gripped her hands together tightly as she flew between realms towards the witch’s shop. She took a moment to collect herself, her eyes wide and fearful as she looked to the woman sitting on her veranda. The girl touched down on the cobblestones leading up to her shop, looking around fearfully.  
  
“Hello, Zashiki-Warashi,” she greeted as she looked over towards the young spirit.   
  
She gave a shaky smile that just looked out of place and sad on her fearful face, her eyes threatening tears. “H-hello.”   
  
“How may I be of service?” Yuuko asked benignly, pouring more sake liberally into her sake dish, all the while her red lips curling upwards into a reassuring smile. Something in her smile must have reached into the contours of the zashiki-warashi’s heart, and the fear dimmed in her eyes though it still raged beneath the surface of her very demeanor.   
  
The young spirit fiddled with her hands, twisting them together and pulling on her fingertips nervously. She looked around, her eyes swooping across the expanse of Yuuko’s shop, undoubtedly searching for one boy. Realizing this was perhaps rude, she returned her attention to the shop owner, silently fretting.   
  
Yuuko’s smile dimmed just a bit, but she answered her silent question. “He’s asleep.”   
  
“But he’s…” the zashiki-warashi began, and could not stop the tears filling in her eyes. “Alive?”  
  
“Yes,” the wish seller said, closing her eyes and nodding once, the sake dish poised at her lips. She took a long drink, opening her eyes so that she could watch the little spirit over the tip of her drink. “You should not be here long, zashiki-warashi. The energy here is not right for you.”   
  
“A-ah…” she lowered her head and her black bangs covered her eyes in shadow. Her hands twisted almost uncomfortably against one another. “H-he’s asleep… he’s okay… that’s… that’s good. I’m so glad.”   
  
“Would you like to see him?” The question itself was irrelevant. She could see the wish glowing in the girl’s heart.   
  
She seemed to shrink away, even as her heart soared out her answer. She fidgeted and shifted from foot to foot. “I’m afraid… I don’t have anything to pay with.”   
  
“Those flowers in your hair shall suffice,” the witch said warmly, quirking her eyebrows up inquisitively.   
  
“My flowers…” she lifted her hand and pulled the stream of flowers clipped to her jet black hair. They were pink and soft, collecting together in bloom. She didn’t even hesitate, and strode forward almost confidently and dropping the branch of flowers into Yuuko’s waiting, outstretched hand. Yuuko’s fingers curled around the flowers one by one and she retracted her hand with a benign smile.   
  
“This way, please,” she said, standing and leading the spirit into her shop. She followed behind her, looking like she was about to cry again.   
  
She led her into the room beyond the rice paper door. He was sleeping, curling into himself and his hand gripping a round object—upon coming closer the zashiki-warashi recognized it as an egg. A single tear rolled down her cheek as she looked at the bandages criss-crossing over his body. She bit her lip to prevent herself from crying out and potentially waking him.   
  
“He’s…”  
  
“When he awakens, he will not be in pain.”   
  
She didn’t seem as if she believed it.   
  
“His friends have ensured that he will not disappear from this world,” Yuuko said gently, touching her hand tenderly to Watanuki’s forehead, pushing back sweat-dampened bangs as she did so. Watanuki sighed in his sleep but otherwise did not stir.   
  
“… Friends,” she echoed absently, looking thoughtful.   
  
“His best friends, I suppose,” Yuuko corrected, also looking thoughtfully down at the sleeping boy.   
  
She didn’t take her eyes away from him. Her eyes drank in every nuance of him, though her face blushed bright red and tears threatened to spill as she did so. “A best friend…” she said absently. “That is…”  
  
“A best friend is someone that you care about most,” Yuuko said, pulling away from Watanuki and turning to look at the house spirit.   
  
“O-oh…” the zashiki-warashi murmured, and looked towards the boy again. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears and she tried to blink them away. “So he has… those best friends already.”   
  
Yuuko was calm and understanding. “Hmm.”   
  
“S-so… A ‘best friend’ is the same as the person you love the most?” the zashiki-warashi asked quietly.   
  
Yuuko closed her eyes in thought, humming low under her breath. “They can be,” she said at last. “But not always.”   
  
“So a ‘best friend’ is your beloved…” Zashiki-Warashi mused to herself.   
  
“Not necessarily,” Yuuko corrected good naturedly. “A best friend is someone you care about and love, but not necessarily in a romantic sense.”   
  
“I see…”   
  
“Sometimes the two go hand and hand, however,” Yuuko continued, drawing the gossamer curtains around Watanuki’s bed. “He’ll sleep for a long while yet,” she said, changing the subject back to the zashiki-warashi’s main concern. “He won’t be fully healed and on his feet again for at least another few days.”   
  
“I see…” she repeated, and looked thoughtful. “I don’t want to disrupt him.”   
  
“Hmm.”   
  
The zashiki-warashi looked one more time at the sleeping boy before turning away. “I don’t want to be a bother…”  
  
“Certainly not.”  
  
She dithered silently, twisting her fingers together, her cheeks bright pink. Yuuko led her outside into the bright sunlight.   
  
“It will rain soon.”   
  
“O-oh,” the zashiki-warashi said, looking up at the sky to see that clouds were slowly sweeping in from the horizon. “The ame-warashi must be concerned for the flowers…”  
  
“Hm, yes. The flowers,” Yuuko mused, dropping the zashiki-warashi’s price into a jug of water beside her sake dish.  
  
“G-goodbye,” the zashiki-warashi said quietly.   
  
“Good day, Zashiki-Warashi,” Yuuko said cheerfully, smiling warmly. “Have a safe trip back to your world.”  
  
“Y-yes,” the spirit murmured, already ascending the air. Still blushing and clutching her hands together, she looked one last time towards the door where Watanuki laid beyond, sleeping. “Please,” she murmured, “Be well.”  
  
Yuuko watched her fly away and eventually disappeared, before picking her sake dish up again. Taking a long drink, she released a long sigh.   
  
“The zashiki-warashi brings good luck. I have no doubt he will have good dreams.”   
  
  
\---  
  
  
It took a few days, but true to Yuuko’s predictions, it was raining.   
  
The zashiki-warashi found the ame-warashi in a vast garden, stretching for ages in all directions of the spirit world. The former approached the latter, who must have heard her because she turned to see her, and nodded once, in greeting. She must have smelled the pollution on the zashiki-warashi, smelled the human world and the continued residue of the luck of one named for sunflowers lingering in the room where Watanuki had been sleeping, because the rain seemed to fall harder, splattering against the zashiki-warashi, cleansing her. It was a silent understanding between the two of them.   
  
They stood in silence, letting the rain wash between them. Ame-Warashi stroked a flower, watching as its petals curled upwards towards the falling rain.   
  
“Ame-Warashi…” the zashiki-warashi began.   
  
“Yes, what is it?” the rain sprite asked calmly, watching the way water collected in the small concave of a leaf.   
  
“Are we… best friends?” she asked.   
  
The rain spirit’s lips pursed together in thought and she turned slowly to regard the vestal spirit. “Why do you ask that?”   
  
“I was speaking with Yuuko…”  
  
“The witch,” the ame-warashi murmured absently.   
  
“About human things,” she continued, blinking innocently up at the fellow spirit. “And we spoke of best friends and companionship. Yuuko said that a best friend is a person you cherished the most, aside from a beloved…” At this point she blushed, either at what she was saying or because she was thinking of a particular mismatched-eyed boy. “So I was wondering. Are we best friends?”   
  
“I suppose,” the rain spirit said, her words quiet and slinking in the air like falling rain drops. She studied the leaves around her but didn’t meet the zashiki-warashi’s eyes. “If you want to put what we have to a human name.”   
  
“O-oh…” the young spirit hadn’t considered this, and wondered for a moment if she’d offended the rain spirit. But she wasn’t shouting, and she didn’t seem angry, so with a sigh the zashiki-warashi determined it was safe. “Well… then Ame-Warashi is my best friend.”   
  
She smiled widely at the rain spirit, and tentatively the spirit returned the smile. She turned away after a moment, smoothing her gloved hands over a particular rose bush, her expression thoughtful and her mouth silent.   
  
“Your beloved,” she said at last and turned in time to see the zashiki-warashi blush brightly and duck her head. Ame-Warashi sighed, her eyes glinting like a thunderstorm. “You believe that boy to be your beloved, correct?”   
  
“… Yes,” she admitted weakly, her face as red as the roses the ame-warashi had just examined.   
  
“Hn,” the rain spirit grunted, looking away and crossing her arms. “I see.”   
  
“I went to see him…”  
  
“So I can smell. Your scent is tainted with his strange scent,” the ame-warashi murmured, tapping her closed umbrella against the trunk of a tree, testing its sturdiness. Water shook from its green leaves and dropped onto her head. She closed her eyes as one rain drop dripped onto her forehead and rolled down over the length of her nose. She relished the feeling of the rain, let it wash her and her pollution away.   
  
“He’s alive… he isn’t going to die,” the zashiki-warashi said, and was unable to hide the sheer amount of relief and happiness in her voice. Tears streamed down her cheeks again and she bashfully wiped them away when the ame-warashi gave her a searching look, and refused to look away.   
  
“His existence is very remarkable,” the ame-warashi said absently, tucking a stray loop of blue hair behind her ear. She sighed, tracing the tip of her umbrella through a collecting puddle in the grass beneath their feet.   
  
“I’m so glad that he’s not in pain…”  
  
“Your flowers are gone.”   
  
“I g-gave them as payment to Yuuko in order to see him.”   
  
“Hn.” Ame-Warashi’s lips pursed again in disapproval and she bent over a rose bush, plucking one of the brighter red roses, in full bloom, from the branch. She approached the zashiki-warashi and tucked the flower behind her ear. Her white gloved fingers brushed across the zashiki-warashi’s cheek and her eyes fell shut as the rain spirit did her work.   
  
And if the ame-warashi’s hands lingered for longer than necessary on her face and in her hair, the zashiki-warashi did not notice, nor did she mind. She cared for the rain spirit, and she knew that the rain spirit cared for her in turn—why else would she spend time with her and look after her? The ame-warashi was a reclusive spirit, more concerned for the creatures that were thankful for her rainfall. It was a rare day when zashiki-warashi saw the ame-warashi interact with another spirit other than herself.   
  
“Thank you,” the zashiki-warashi said when the ame-warashi pulled away and left a respectable distance between the two of them.   
  
“Think nothing of it,” the rain sprite dismissed.   
  
Zashiki-Warashi lifted her hand and touched the rose, and thought of the flowers she’d given away in order to see Watanuki—her beloved. Her face ignited into flames at the mere thought of it, and her lips quirked into a relieved smile as the news of his recovery once again washed over her. She released a long, happy sigh.   
  
Ame-Warashi looked at her before turning back to the plants.   
  
They continued in this manner for a long while. Zashiki-Warashi was silent and watched Ame-Warashi, who worked diligently to feed her flowers.   
  
“…And Ame-Warashi?” the zashiki-warashi asked, finally swallowing her fear and standing up a bit straighter to look towards her best friend. The rain spirit was looking back, politely distant and expression neutral.  
  
“What?”   
  
“Do you have a person you considered to be your… beloved?” the zashiki-warashi managed to squeak out, surprised at her own courage. But, this was her best friend, after all—the phrase was still new to her thoughts, something she still had to grow used to—and being honest was important for best friends.   
  
Ame-Warashi went still, looking at her for a long moment. The blue of her eyes were deeper, wider, far more beautiful than any stormy sky, any ocean waters, and any rainfall. They stared at the vestal spirit, her lips a thin line, her eyebrows knitting together in thought as she weighed her words. The hands gripping her umbrella tightened and loosened, and had she not been wearing the gloves her knuckles would have been visibly white. Zashiki-Warashi waited patiently, looking over at the other spirit patiently, curious despite her embarrassment at the intimate question.   
  
Finally, the rain spirit heaved a sigh and looked away, reaching out a hand to brush her fingertips across a rose yet to bloom. “… That kind of thing is irrelevant.”   
  
The lack of an entry was not lost on the zashiki-warashi, but she could not begin to comprehend what the evasion of the question could mean. “But…”   
  
The rain spirit looked back at her again, their eyes locking. “But?”  
  
“Best friends… share these kinds of things, don’t they?” She fiddled with her hands. “That kind of honesty… isn’t irrelevant, is it?”   
  
She ducked her head as the rain spirit took a step towards her. The ame-warashi closed the distance between them, stopping a reasonable distance from her, propping her umbrella in front of her and leaning forward inquisitively. Her face was blank, though her eyes swirled with a hurricane in the blue irises.   
  
“No, I suppose that isn’t irrelevant.”   
  
“I-I’m sorry, I don’t mean to intrude.”   
  
“I have someone I consider to be a beloved,” the ame-warashi said abruptly after a long, awkward silence. She took a step back, opened her umbrella and placed it precariously on one shoulder. She lifted her free hand not enclosed around the umbrella and held it out to the zashiki-warashi. “Shall we?”   
  
The zashiki-warashi hesitated for one moment before the ame-warashi smiled at her. She smiled back and took the proffered gloved hand.   
  
“Alright…”  
  
“We’ll have to go visit that foolish human of yours, won’t we?” She squeezed her hand to try and distract the house spirit from the small lace of bitterness in the rain spirit’s voice. “He’ll be well enough that you can speak with him now, hm?”  
  
“T-thank you, Ame-Warashi.”   
  
“Think nothing of it. I do it for you, not _that_.”   
  
“… M-mm.”   
  
Their hands remained entwined even as the two of them dissolved into water and traveled towards the human realm.


End file.
